Mike Argento: The miracle of porcine life

The crowd around the steel-gated pen in Toyota Arena had been growing all morning. By 11 a.m., it was three-deep, watching the miracle of porcine life.

It really wasn't much, as far as miracles go. A 450-pound sow - she's small, her owner explained - was on her side, cranking out future sides of bacon. There is no other way to describe the miracle of porcine life. She was cranking them out.

By 11:15 a.m., she had already popped out six little piglets. And she wasn't done.

People in the crowd craned their necks to get a better look at what was, at once, powerful affirmation of life itself and the kind of thing that make you want to skip lunch. For about a month. People took cell phone pictures to share with friends and family. They held small children up so they could get a peek at the creation of bratwurst.

"That isn't right," Joe Hetrick, of Dover, said to his aunt, Shirley Lehman. "How would you like if a bunch of people stood around watching you give birth?"

Shirley, of Mount Wolf, conceded that she wouldn't like it very much. But this, she said, was pretty fascinating. Her sister, Dot Hetrick, was also fascinated. She turned to her 4-year-old granddaughter, Madison, and said, "That's where pigs come from."

Dot didn't have the heart to tell Madison that the little piglets would grow up to become bacon. The girl already stopped eating pork chops when she learned they came from pigs. Dot didn't want Madison to learn that bacon also comes from pigs.

Advertisement

The girl likes bacon. "She's a bacon girl," Dot said.

The miracle of porcine life seemed fairly routine, at least for the mother, a nameless sow from Cedar Hill Pork Farm in Wellsville. She lay on her side and the newborns just seemed to emerge from her - how should I put this? - birth canal, slick and unctuous with a brownish sheen of liquid, a mix of amniotic fluid and blood.

The piglets would stand almost immediately on shaky legs, shivering. Within minutes, they went in search of something to eat.

By 11:30, the mother had cranked out seven piglets.

"They can have between eight or 12," said Roger Bankert, a swine farmer from Hanover and the York Fair's livestock superintendent.

Bankert knows his swine. He's been in the business for 54 years. His dad was a dairy farmer, and when Bankert was a kid and in Future Farmers of America, his uncle bought him his first pig. He raised it and showed it at the fair and "been in it ever since," he said.

The birth process can last several hours. "A little like humans," Bankert said. "It depends on their nature and how they're bred. This one's a good mother. She's just lying there."

As we talked, the eighth piglet popped out.

Number nine followed a few minutes later, its snout red with blood, dragging its umbilical cord behind it as it took its first steps on shaky legs. It stood to its mother's back, facing the crowd, which you could imagine is fairly traumatic for both the piglet and the crowd. One woman looked it and shuddered and walked away. "Squeamish," is all she could say.

The ninth piglet came not long after that.

As the ninth piglet was finding its legs, its siblings squealed and fought to get fed. It doesn't take long, Bankert said. "Within 10 minutes, they're going to be hunting for teat," he said.

I could say something here, but I better not.

The tenth came along a few minutes later.

Sandy Sweitzer, whose family owns Cedar Hill farm, said it wasn't the easiest birth. The second piglet was a breech, coming out butt-first. They reached in and pulled it out and since then, "she's spitting them out pretty good."

She said her family has about 750 sows on its farm, having been in the pig business since 1992. The piglets being born today will be raised until they weigh about 50 pounds - they weigh about four pounds at birth - and then they will sell them to farmers who will see them through until they are big enough to be sold for ham and bacon and pork chops and sausage.

Farmers don't get attached to the animals, she said. "They have a purpose in life," she said. "They're part of the food chain and our part is to supply food."

The sow, when she was done, had given birth to a dozen piglets.

A dozen.

Is this a pig or a clown car?

The fair organizers made contingencies if the sow did not "clean" herself when she was finished cranking out little pigs. "Cleaning" means expelling the placenta and whatnot. If it doesn't come out, one of the farmhands said, someone would have to reach in and pull it out. It's not pretty, and if it came to that, they planned to cover the sow up with a tarp beforehand. It didn't come to that. Still, it's something that once you see it, you can't unsee it, no matter how much you try.

So enjoy your breakfast.

Have some bacon with your eggs.

Mike Argento's column appears Mondays and Fridays in Living and Sundays in Viewpoints. Reach him at mike@ydr.com or 771-2046. Read more Argento columns at www.ydr.com/mike. Or follow him on Twitter at FnMikeArgento.